This session will examine the economics of microgrid-enabled grid services, including:
• Peak demand reduction, resilience cost avoidance, and outage mitigation valuation
• Energy arbitrage, demand charge management, and load flexibility strategies
• The role of microgrids in providing frequency, capacity, and restoration support
• Compensation and market mechanisms for aggregated DER participation
• Conditions where microgrid operation lowers or increases system costs—and how to design for net benefit.

This session will discuss the key challenges that community leaders face as they aim to deploy renewable energy microgrids, including how the environment has changed with the new administration. This session also will explore the different projects that are under way including key learnings on business models, project finance, partnership strategies, and utility engagement.

Covington Water District stands out as a champion of sustainability through its innovative approach to energy management and resiliency. In partnership with McKinstry, the District has transformed traditional infrastructure by installing a micro-hydro turbine system that captures energy from water pressure, offsetting nearly 80% of the facility’s energy use. Building on this success, Covington Water District is now implementing a cutting-edge microgrid and battery storage system, enabling the campus to operate independently during utility outages and further reducing reliance on fossil fuels.

This session focuses on bridging the gap between modeling assumptions and real-world performance, addressing how systems can be dispatched and managed to maximize economic and resilience value over their lifecycle.

This session will explore Colusa’s journey from a California-based tribally owned energy developer to a leader designing and delivering advanced energy solutions for sovereign nations, community infrastructures, and private industry.  It also will discuss the key energy requirements for modern data centers, including high-capacity generation, microgrid resiliency, and clean energy integration to meet sustainability mandates.

By clarifying how utilities define “value,” participants will gain insight into how microgrid proposals can be structured for strategic alignment, financial justification, and approval.

Financing remains one of the most significant barriers to widespread microgrid adoption. This session addresses the investment side of microgrid development, exploring financing structures, risk allocation strategies, and contract models that support scalable and repeatable deployment.